Clarisse Thorn

I write and speak about subcultures, sexuality, and new media.

When I was in my late teens and early twenties, I really felt uncomfortable with and uneasy about porn. I believed it was something that “all men watch” and “all men like”. I didn’t yet realize that there are lots of different kinds of porn out there, and so I believed that the mainstream porn I’d seen represented “all men’s desires”. Given that I didn’t look like women in mainstream porn and I didn’t want to act like women in mainstream porn, this made me suspect that I couldn’t possibly be awesome in bed; so I couldn’t help feeling pressured and threatened by porn’s very existence, because it seemed to be fulfilling “all men’s desires” in a way that I couldn’t. (I felt even more uneasy when I first came across SomethingAwful’s hentai game reviews around age 18. The reviews were so funny that I laughed out loud, but I also literally cried — right in a public computer lab, actually.)

But I accepted that the men in my life watched porn, and I made it clear that although I didn’t want to hear about it, I didn’t mind — that I certainly didn’t expect them to give up porn while dating me.

Except one. I dated one man who insisted that he didn’t use porn, and I believed him. Keep in mind that I had told him I didn’t mind if he used porn, so his insistence that he didn’t came entirely from him, not me. And then one day I was going through our computer’s search history looking for something I’d been reading the day before, and I came upon rape-fantasy porn. And I was heartbroken.

Way beyond the fact that the man I loved had outright lied to me — which, I think, legitimately entitled me to be angry — my reaction went something like this:

A) The only man I’ve ever met who I thought truly didn’t like porn was lying to me, which means I can’t trust men who say they don’t like porn, and probably indicates that men who have told me they don’t like rape porn were lying too.

B) Porn indicates real preferences, right? So what this means is that all men secretly crave to rape women, but that they are either too afraid of the legal consequences or care too much about the women they love to actually do it.

In other words, I thought something like: I can’t trust men to be honest about their sexuality, and their sexuality is scary and predatory.

This was a highly overwrought and almost totally wrong read on the situation! But that’s how I felt at the time. I couldn’t figure out a way to talk to my boyfriend about the porn without causing a fight (it was a rather non-communicative relationship, and I’m glad it’s long over). So I never talked to him about it, and it took me years to unravel all the incorrect assumptions I had wrapped up in my reactions to porn.

* * *

In the circles I run in today, saying that I’ve got sympathy for anti-porn feminists is kind of like saying I’ve got sympathy for the devil. But the truth is, I’ve got quite a lot of it. Don’t get me wrong: I emphatically do not supportcensoringporn. I screened some documentaries on feminist and alternative porn when I curated my sex-positive film series. And I often point out that, despite what anti-porn feminists say, there’s absolutely no evidence that porn increases sexual violence. In fact, there’s reason to think that increased porn access reducessexual violence.

These issues have been highlighted lately with the release of Pornland, a book by anti-porn zealot Gail Dines. I haven’t read it, but from the reviews and excerpts and interviews I’ve seen, it’s obvious that Pornland is breathtaking in its lack of evidence. (My personal favorite coverage is this interview, in which Dines’ own former research assistant — who is now a porn performer — disputes Dines’ claims.)

So how can I have sympathy for anti-porn feminists? Only because I remember how I felt just a few years ago. I remember that I felt so confused about my own sexuality; I remember how resentful I felt, that sex seemed so easy for men — that the world seemed to facilitate their sex drives so thoroughly, particularly by providing all this porn!

I remember how hurt I felt by porn, because I believed that it represented “what men want”, and that therefore I was “supposed” to act like porn women — even though the way women acted in porn didn’t appeal to me at all. I remember how scared I felt, when I believed that rape porn reflected “all men’s desires”, and concluded that “all men secretly would love to commit rape”. The porn that I’d seen felt as though it set the standard for my sexual behavior, and I hated that standard, but I didn’t see a way out. Because even with all my liberal, sex-positive sex education, there were serious flaws in my knowledge about sex. Not to mention the fact that I hadn’t yet wrapped my mind around the concept of fully-negotiated, 100% consensual rape fantasy sex.

And that’s really the heart of the problem with porn: that is, the problem is not porn in itself at all. The problem is bad sex education. The problem is that all Americans are subjected to sexual mores that shame sex; that refuse to talk honestly about sex; that claim we shouldn’t be having sex at all. The problem is that millions of people are too ashamed and afraid and repressed to talk or think seriously about their sexual desires. That millions of people don’t recognize the diversity of sexual desire. And, therefore, that millions of people’s primary source of information about sexuality is highly stylized mainstream porn.

1) There’s a stereotype that male sexuality is inherently dangerous, unwanted, or predatory and that it must be contained or restrained at all costs. This means that porn cannot be allowed to thrive, especially if it seems to cater to men. This is also, I suspect, the source of the claim that porn access increases rape (again, false). Anti-porn activists rely on the societal belief that men’s sexuality is hard to control, scaring us into believing that allowing porn will enable uncontrollable men.

2) There’s anxiety about alternative sexuality. Almost everyone in the world can be freaked out by some form of sexuality, and most people are freaked out by very predictable taboos. This freaking-out reaction doesn’t actually mean that there’s anything wrong with that form of sexuality — because, folks, nothing is wrong with any form of sexuality as long as it is 100% consensual! — but most people don’t think past their immediate freakout. So anti-porn folks often use images of extreme sexuality to alarm people who aren’t prepared to see those images. In other words, they often rely on freaking people out to make their case — possibly because otherwise they haven’t got a case.

3) Does porn create certain desires? Or does it merely cater to existing desires? The answer is probably “a little bit of both”, but anti-porn activists rely on the idea that porn makes its viewers want certain kinds of sex or certain kinds of partners. Many of us (like me, years ago) are afraid that we can’t “live up” to our partners’ preferences, and many of us (like me, years ago) tend to believe that “all men” or “all women” want the same thing. So there’s an anti-porn fear that if we allow porn to flourish, those of us who don’t enjoy acting like [mainstream] porn stars will be unable to satisfy our partners.

Again, I got sympathy. I understand these fears because I used to feel them; I felt them so strongly that it made me cry in a public computer lab. But the solution isn’t getting rid of the porn, it’s getting rid of the fears. The solution is:

1) Reframing male sexuality so that we aren’t so damn scared of it all the time. Men can and will control themselves sexually, and they’ll only get better at it — not worse — if we encourage honest, non-scary, open-minded dialogue about male sexual desire.

2) Encouraging people to see alternative sexuality as just another human preference, rather than something weird and/or freakish. Encouraging people to accept and come to terms with their own sexuality, though this can be a tough and hard-to-recognize process — it certainly was for me. Once people feel comfortable in their own sex lives and recognize their own weird fetishes, they’ll be much less likely to judge other people’s sex lives.

3) Making it incredibly clear that everyone has different sexual desires, that different kinds of porn express different desires, and that “all men” and “all women” don’t want the same thing. Porn can be a wonderful tool for exploring particular desires, and allowing people to explore their particular preferences makes it easier for everyone to find sexual satisfaction, not harder — because it means that people with particular preferences can find each other, rather than ending up in unhappy partnerships where those desires are ignored.

4) Giving more airtime to alternative porn, especially feminist porn, to make it obvious that all porn isn’t the same. [1]

5) Oh, and of course we need to encourage people to recognize that violent sex isn’t necessarily bad sex; that even something as extreme as a rape scene can be 100% consensual. One key idea that I’m trying to push is writing about the amazing variety of sexual communication tactics derived from S&M — tactics that enable some awesomely extreme, awesomely consensual sex.

* * *

I have a theory about how porn affects men in bed. I don’t have any data, I’ve just got my experience, and that means I’m on the same level as Gail Dines (so maybe I should publish a book). I’ve had a pretty fair number of sexual partners at this point, and it’s true that, in my experience, men who don’t like mainstream porn are often better in bed: more attentive and less likely to make assumptions, for example. Perhaps they’re better off because they never learned or believed in the stereotypes of mainstream porn — then again, some guys who don’t like porn are horribly repressed and terrible in bed, so obviously the issue cuts both ways.

However! There’s another group of men who are excellent in bed. Often, they’re even better than men who don’t watch porn. And that group is men who have watched a lot of different kinds of porn and who have thought carefully about their reactions to it. They have learned how many different flavors of sexuality are out there in the world. They are men who have gotten over their sexual repression and learned to talk about sex in an open, accepting, honest way. Those men are fantastic in bed.

And they’ve probably got more exposure to porn than any of the men cherry-picked by anti-porn zealots who talk about the horrors of porn.

* * *

* Footnote: This point (#4) was added in February 2011. It’s late for me to add it in, because this piece has already been republished in multiple venues across the internet, but it’s an important point and I’m mad at myself that I left it out of the original version of this post. I think I take too much sex-positive theory for granted sometimes ….

70 responses to “[storytime] Sympathy for the Anti-Porn Feminists”

What are your thoughts on the position that there’s nothing *inherently* wrong with porn, but in current practice the porn industry is sexist (i.e., is largely controlled by and favors men while exploiting women)? In other words, porn, as an industry (not an artform), doesn’t get a special out because the content it produces involves sexuality (with all its fraught complexities). Content aside, as an industry it should be accountable and responsible for minimizing gender bias just like any other industry. In other *other* words, can feminists criticize porn without automatically being seen as sex-negative?

Elisa, I absolutely think that the porn industry is not immune to criticism — no more than any other industry! I think that if we’re serious about preventing actual harm to actual women, then we ought to be encouraging good industry standards for all sex workers, including porn performers. But then, I also think that we should be including good industry standards for pretty much every job, from coal miners to graduate students.

I’m not sure about the charge that the porn industry is sexist just because I know that the porn industry is huge. I’m sure there are sexist companies, but I also know for a fact that there are porn companies run by and for women, and even companies run by men that seem to treat their female employees pretty well. Am I willing to believe that the porn industry is generally sexist? Sure; I’m also willing to believe that the gaming industry, where I used to work, is generally sexist. As feminists we should be opposing sexism in itself, though. We shouldn’t be assuming that any particular type of job is inherently sexist, or trying to paternalistically control the choices of women in any industry.

Right, I don’t mean to suggest that other industries are not sexist (ha, hardly!) or that there are no porn companies that aren’t sexist. But it does seem to be the case that the vast majority of widely available porn is created for and marketed toward men — kind of like how cleaning products are all marketed toward women. ;) I think more women would embrace porn if more porn took an active interest in female sexuality.

Elisa, perhaps what you are seeing is a popularity skewed view. Where popularity doesn’t mean “preferred”, it means “has large sales and a large cultural presence”. My suspicion is that there is what’s called “pluralistic ignorance” in the porn industry about what people want – popularity driving retail driving expectations driving popularity.

Thanks so much for this post. I have so many issues, still, with viewing my own sexuality as toxic, unwanted, and dangerous… it’s fantastic to see a public post addressing that.

Regarding porn preferences, I watch a fair amount of porn myself, but it’s actually really frustrating looking for porn that I actually want to watch. Frankly, the porn I like best is amateur couples porn. People who clearly have an already established, loving relationship that comes through in the porn. Unfortunately, this also seems like the most likely porn to be published non-consensually (i.e. they could have been private sex tapes). So… arg. Porn that I actually like is few and far between.

An interesting issue for me, though, is that while searching for porn I will get more and more turned on. And as that happens I get less and less picky, and more and more “I just want to find something soon”. So I often end up jacking off to something that, after I come, I’m like “WTF? Why was I watching this?” A female friend of mine has expressed that she has the same issue, so it’s not necessarily just a male thing. But it’s interesting.

“Does porn create certain desires? Or does it merely cater to existing desires? The answer is probably “a little bit of both”, but anti-porn activists rely on the idea that porn makes its viewers want certain kinds of sex or certain kinds of partners.”

I would say that, for me, porn helped make me aware of desires and things I’d like to try that wouldn’t have occurred to me before. But the same can be said of books like The Guide To Getting It On (which I adore). And I’m sure that, like getting used to beer, there are also things that I wouldn’t have liked before but now do. But I can hardly see anything wrong with that.

“I have a theory about how porn affects men in bed. I don’t have any data, I’ve just got my experience, and that means I’m on the same level as Gail Dines (so maybe I should publish a book). I’ve had a pretty fair number of sexual partners at this point, and it’s true that, in my experience, men who don’t like mainstream porn are often better in bed: more attentive and less likely to make assumptions, for example. Perhaps they’re better off because they never learned or believed in the stereotypes of mainstream porn — then again, some guys who don’t like porn are horribly repressed and terrible in bed, so obviously the issue cuts both ways.

However! There’s another group of men who are excellent in bed. Often, they’re even better than men who don’t watch porn. And that group is men who have watched a lot of different kinds of porn and who have thought carefully about their reactions to it. They have learned how many different flavors of sexuality are out there in the world. They are men who have gotten over their sexual repression and learned to talk about sex in an open, accepting, honest way. Those men are fantastic in bed.”

For what it’s worth, in my (admittedly limited) experience, all of these statements apply equally to female sexual partners.

Cessen:An interesting issue for me, though, is that while searching for porn I will get more and more turned on. And as that happens I get less and less picky, and more and more “I just want to find something soon”. So I often end up jacking off to something that, after I come, I’m like “WTF? Why was I watching this?” A female friend of mine has expressed that she has the same issue, so it’s not necessarily just a male thing. But it’s interesting.
So I’m not the only one that does this. I personally download a lot of porn but honestly I’ll watch most of it maybe a few times (unless it has someone I really like) and then it almost passes out of site and out of mind.

Clarisse:I dated one man who insisted that he didn’t use porn, and I believed him. Keep in mind that I had told him I didn’t mind if he used porn, so his insistence that he didn’t came entirely from him, not me. And then one day I was going through our computer’s search history looking for something I’d been reading the day before, and I came upon rape-fantasy porn. And I was heartbroken.
Not to try to let him off the hook but (as you elude to in your post, I’m just saying it point blank) I’d be willing to bet that probably hid it because he was thinking that even though you said you didn’t mind he felt he couldn’t trust you saying that. You see despite it supposedly being okay for guys to look at and talk about porn there is a stigma attached to it. And he may not have been sure if he could really believe you when you said you didn’t mind. And if it is true (that he hid if from you because he was afraid of your reaction) chances are he’s had that fear in mind for a long time.

They are men who have gotten over their sexual repression and learned to talk about sex in an open, accepting, honest way.
Many thanks for this part. There seems to be this belief that men are given free reign on their sexuality while women are the only ones having theirs repressed.

See, this is actually exactly why I have very little patience with anti-porn feminism: because it is something that’s so easy to buy into, because it convinces people and especially women that their desires aren’t real desires, that they’ve been brainwashed by the patriarchy, that the only genuine desires are those within the One True Form of Sexuality it proposes. The fact that it’s based on existing fears and stereotypes only makes it more dangerous.

Worse, it protects itself by attacking anything that challenges its narrow viewpoint. Suggest there’s something wrong with its view of male sexuality? You must be an evil patriarchy-defending anti-feminist. Argue that alternative forms of sexuality aren’t so bad? That’s an attempt to defend violence against women. Have experiences that don’t fit its model of sexuality? They’re deceptions that must be re-interpreted to fit within it, and anything that contradicts this is a rationalization that must be ignored or an outright lie.

Once someone has got far enough into anti-porn feminism, there is nothing you can do that will convince them of the problems with it. The entire movement is structured in such a way that whatever contradictory argument or evidence you present is automatically rejected by its members without even having to think about it. That’s dangerous.

It’s reasonable to have sympathy for its members, in much the same way as it is for anyone else who is a danger to society for reasons somewhat beyond their control, but sympathy shouldn’t be the same as tolerance or acceptance.

I support porn and sex work when the workers are empowered and have a good amount of control over who they do what with. You do hear horror stories about people who either aren’t able to say “no” or say “no” and still have it happen- that’s not good no matter where you’re working. There are also people who enjoy what they do. I’m just not entirely sure how often this is the situation, and I really doubt that you can trust the creators to be honest about it- as they’re trying to make money.

One thing I dislike about anti-porn things is when they focus on how it effects the men who “have” to look at this stuff. I saw one article about how a guy went from girl-on-girl porn to straight porn to porn featuring women who happen to be trans and how AWFUL it is to find women attractive (when they happen to be trans). No commentary on how porn effects actual women- trans, cis or trans lesbian/bisexual/pansexual, or otherwise. No research to find out how many of the people genuinely wanted to be in the porn and enjoyed what they do. Nope. All about how awful it is for a “straight” guy to be attracted to women who aren’t completely “normal”.

My heart bleeds for the poor, vulnerable, middle-class educated straight white temporarily able-bodied cis men who have to suffer the pain of jerking off while looking at attractive women. Truly, they are the real victims of porn.

to be honest, I can totally understand why you felt the way you felt when you realized your boyfriend had lied to you. But I’m glad you managed to broaden your perspective to the extent you did. Why do you think did your boyfriend lie to you? I mean, why did he feel the pressure to lie not just about his apparent interest in rape phantasies but about being interested in *any* porn?

I have to say that I would find a man who insisted on not watching porn to be odder than a man who said he would – because I’d assume he’d be lying.

How many of the last kind of men have you met? How did you learn to recognize them (before finding out in bed…)?

@Elisa, JulianMorrison — Yeah, I agree that women would probably be more interested in porn if porn were perceived to be more relevant to women … but as JM says, I’m not sure how much this is because there’s not much porn that’s relevant to women, and how much it’s because the popular image of porn doesn’t seem relevant to women. I’m not all that into porn myself, actually, so I can’t comment extensively on what kind of porn for women is available. I know there’s some, but I don’t know how much and I haven’t seen much evidence of it in mainstream porn outlets.

An interesting issue for me, though, is that while searching for porn I will get more and more turned on. … So I often end up jacking off to something that, after I come, I’m like “WTF? Why was I watching this?”

I’m confused … if the porn you’re finding is turning you on, why do you say that you don’t like it? Is it just that it’s not the best kind of porn?

@Sam — Why do you think did your boyfriend lie to you? I mean, why did he feel the pressure to lie not just about his apparent interest in rape phantasies but about being interested in *any* porn? … How many of the last kind of men have you met? How did you learn to recognize them (before finding out in bed…)?

Well, as Danny notes, I’d guess it has to do with internalized stigma — he felt anxiety about watching porn out of socialized self-hatred. And yes, I’m sure he knew that although I was putting forth effort to be porn-tolerant, I was still very bothered by porn and that I couldn’t help feeling relieved if he could convince me he didn’t watch it.

I also think it’s possible that he wasn’t watching porn when he told me he didn’t use it, and that he started watching it later, but in that case (from a relationship perspective) I think he probably should have given me an FYI. But we were young and didn’t communicate well, so it’s understandable …. Really, it’s not that I blame him for what happened, although I still think he should have been more honest; I tell the story about him because it’s a good example, not because I want to rake him over the coals.

I’ve met very few men who claim not to watch porn. When a man tells me that, I tend to believe him, just because people tend to be incredibly honest and outgoing with me about their sex lives once they understand how tolerant I am and how extreme my own sex life is (i.e., they have much less motivation to lie to me). In particular, I understand that my boyfriend in Africa who I refer to as Chastity Boy (I’ve written about him before) doesn’t watch porn. From my perspective, this seems to come partly from his desire to take the “no sex before marriage” thing seriously; partly from concern about the labor conditions for women who actually work in porn; and partly from the fact that he’s never felt motivated/comfortable to research porn enough to find porn he really likes. But his take on his own motivations may be different, of course.

thanks for your reply. I just realized my question wasn’t too clearly worded – I was, in particular, wondering about how many men within this group –

“However! There’s another group of men who are excellent in bed. Often, they’re even better than men who don’t watch porn. And that group is men who have watched a lot of different kinds of porn and who have thought carefully about their reactions to it. They have learned how many different flavors of sexuality are out there in the world. They are men who have gotten over their sexual repression and learned to talk about sex in an open, accepting, honest way. Those men are fantastic in bed.”

– you know. And how you learned to distinguish them from the others. But I suppose the answer will be that you are actually having conversations that are likely to reveal such things. For what it’s worth, even in my still limited *actual* sexual experience, I was apparently able to impress a woman with techniques taken from (“educational”) porn… there certainly are films with educational value.

In particular, I understand that my boyfriend in Africa who I refer to as Chastity Boy doesn’t watch porn. From my perspective, this seems to come partly from his desire to take the “no sex before marriage” thing seriously; partly from concern about the labor conditions for women who actually work in porn; and partly from the fact that he’s never felt motivated/comfortable to research porn enough to find porn he really likes. But his take on his own motivations may be different, of course.

Well, if you want to talk about my psychology, let’s get to it: Points for the first reason and half credit for the third.

However, labor conditions are less a concern to me than the possibility of a person dehumanizing anyone who appears on a screen. Let’s face it: War victims in other countries aren’t people to us. There’s a lot of evil that people could stop if they were absolutely determined, but don’t, because they don’t feel for televised people in the same way they feel for their own kin. Likewise, I fear the dehumanizing effects the glowing screen might exert on sex (minus the bit about kin) – it’d be bad to become accustomed to thinking about sex in such a distant way.

I haven’t a single shred of hard data with which to back this fear.

Concerning your reply to Cessen, I think that you may be undervaluing the Pavlovian and transgressive sides of looking for porn. It’s fun to transgress, and all porn is a transgression against society at large. Secondly, the knowledge that you’re about to be aroused is, itself, arousing (the Pavlovian side).

To explain my knowledge of this topic, the fact that I don’t watch porn now doesn’t mean that I never did. Life as a (non-Baha’i) teenager was different. : )

Clarisse,Except one. I dated one man who insisted that he didn’t use porn, and I believed him. Keep in mind that I had told him I didn’t mind if he used porn, so his insistence that he didn’t came entirely from him, not me.

I don’t agree with that last part; it seems to hinge on the idea that he believed you when you told him you didn’t mind. From the sounds of it, you told him you were okay with it, and he (correctly) didn’t believe you.
Not so much a matter of internalizing stigma, I’m thinking, so much as a correct reading of the situation.

Combined with this part:And yes, I’m sure he knew that … I was still very bothered by porn…

Seems to be saying that you know that he already knew you weren’t okay with porn at the time you told him you were okay with porn? Erm…
Unless I’m misreading this, it looks you told him you were okay with porn, and he didn’t believe you, and was right not to. So he told you he didn’t watch porn, and now you don’t believe him, and you are right not to.

I dunno if that makes sense, but it’s why I think this part is so funny:

Way beyond the fact that the man I loved had outright lied to me — which, I think, legitimately entitled me to be angry…

I’m a bit curious here. Unless I’m much mistaken, you’re saying you lied to the guy about being okay with porn, and he, knowing this, lied to you about not watching it. From what’s presented here, it looks like he treated you exactly the way you treated him. I’m not sure how this legitimately entitles anyone to be angry.
(Present circumstances excluded, of course, ’cause I am sorta making fun of you for what sounds like a painful experience ;)

Sam,I have to say that I would find a man who insisted on not watching porn to be odder than a man who said he would – because I’d assume he’d be lying.

That’s what I’d assume too, though Clarisse’s reasons for (now) presuming honesty on that front do seem to make sense. For me, it’s in the same category as someone telling you they don’t masturbate: I instantly assume that’s bullshit. May have something to do with my age, though; I hear porn got less widespread/readily available a few years after I was in college (but I don’t know if that’s true at all).

Tangentially, my brother sent me this link, and I thought of conversations I’ve had here; it’s “important things they didn’t teach you in school;” check out the “Sex Ed (for boys)” part. Especially the chapter headings. (The section for girls isn’t terrible, but it does use the
standard stupid bullshit about the seduction-community people. But they’re Cracked.com, so people looking to avoid stupid bullshit don’t really hang out there much.)

Cessen,For what it’s worth, in my (admittedly limited) experience, all of these statements apply equally to female sexual partners.

Similarly here, I’d say. In my experience, women who’ve watched (or read) a variety of porn, and thought about what they like and don’t like, tend to have a much better idea of what they want to do. I imagine that, like Clarisse says, it’s the same for men. (Assuming that we’re all in agreement that “knowing what you want and being cool with talking about it” and “being good in bed” are closely related.)
And watching a broad variety of porn is, I think, about as close as your average American teenager can get to a decent sex-education. Which is laughably ridiculous, yeah.

Motley, maybe I can clarify how I acted. I didn’t say that I “was okay” with porn, I said that I “didn’t mind” if he used it. For me there’s a big difference between these two. Sure, he knew that I was bothered by it. But since I was being an adult and owning up to my triggers and clearly negotiating my stance, I think he owed it to me to be an adult and own up to his needs and clearly negotiate his stance.

Also, every other man I’ve ever dated owned up to the fact that he used porn when I told him I didn’t mind, so I find it hard to believe that I was projecting such an unstoppable “I hate porn” vibe in the way that you’re implying.

I suppose one could argue that I shouldn’t have told him I didn’t mind him using porn when I wasn’t really 100% okay with it, but I would have felt a lot worse telling my boyfriends not to do it than I did when telling them to go ahead and do it.

Well, first off , good post. I sympthathise with your struggles when you first ran into this stuff. I just read that Rapelay review at SomethingAwful -yes, the review is funny but the game -while it doesn’t reward evil because in the end no matter what you get killed – is still a very disturbing game. I’ve known about it for a few years now and read not only feminist threads that mention it but also the wikipedia article and some game mag reviews of it. But see, here’s the difference I think besides me being a man and you being a woman – you are much younger than I am (39 here) and so when I first ran into this game on the web I had already been reading sites like 4chan and something awful for 4 or 5 years, I already had a background of reading and watching all sorts of adult stuff. My parents pretty much let me read/view whatever I wanted from 14 on, and by the time I turned 21 the law verified this right. You were 18 and running into very explicit stuff that makes the old Hustler I used to look at when I was 18 very tame in comparison. So yes, this stuff can be ALOT to handle, esp when one is young and more innocent in some ways.

Now for some of the other comments:
I think people here have overlooked one thing about her guys choice of porn: it was RAPE porn. There is not, could not be a more socially shamed type of porn out there, short of maybe downright pre-pubescent child porn. (and yes, I know child porn of the prepubescent type is always exploitive and no, I am NOT comparing a rape porn fantasy tape to either the real thing or real child porn) What I mean is that he had reason to suspect that you would react VERY badly to that type of porn, either thinking he was some kind of misogynist or rapist-wannabee, or perhaps you’d merely be upset because of YOUR background.

I can sympathise with him because for years I was not only shy and unpopular with women, but I also had mostly submissive desires (though not of the I wanna be your SLAVE! variety)and I did everything in my power to keep those hidden convinced I was total freak – and not “freak” in an empowering way.

But that sort of segues into another thing I wanted to bring up. The reason I think the market is mostly for men isn’t just sexism (some of that exists but its easily exaggerated), nor is it entirely biological in the sense that most women aren’t interested in porn at all, though I do think over and above socialization the average woman’s sexual desires and types of visual stimuli tend to be different on average than that of men. No, I think porn functions as a substitute for men who can’t get women at all either because of shyness or awkwardness or bad treatment with and from women. Yes most men watch porn at one time or another, but I think most hard core porn consumers tend to be lonely men. Because it is easier for most women to get either relationships or casual sex than it is for most men, I don’t think the numbers of consumers will ever be anywhere approaching 50 percent. And because of that, most porn will always be marketed to men.

Please note comment #13 from Chastity Boy, which I just approved (it seems that even my partners’ comments will get marked as spam sometimes, huh?).

@clarence — I agree that the stigma is higher around rape porn, and that could have influenced my ex-boyfriend’s actions. I’ve never talked to him about whether that was the sole kind of porn he watched or whether he also watched other kinds, but especially if that was the only kind of porn he watched, I can see how he would have been particularly motivated towards reflexive denial that he watched it.

I think I’m going to vehemently have to disagree with this statement. I think this is a perfect illustration of what Foucault would call the seeming contradiction the “oppressing” social discourse about sexuality since the Victorian age. The fact that society has produced such an immense discourse about pornography *as alleged transgression* is a proof in itself of the extent to which this same pornography *is a part* of that social discourse.

Technological effects of wider availability notwithstanding, of course. I’d be much more inclined to have a conversation about the potential psychological effects of ever available pornography than about pornography as transgression as such.

I read your post over at sexgenderbody and left a comment there, mostly just saying this is great stuff. I find there’s a lot more discussion here, though, and I’m glad to have found you. Do you mind if I quote and discuss your post on my own blog?

[…] down, due to non-existent terms of service violations. Here’s some more details on that. [storytime] Sympathy for the Anti-Porn Feminists – Clarisse has changed her mind and position on pornography since her first exposure to it. […]

[…] Thorn, sex-positive, pro-kink feminist blogger, recently wrote a post in which she suggested some intriguing connections between lack of good sex ed…. What really impressed me is that she not only cites studies on pornography, violence, and desire, […]

We need more conversation like this column. I am amazed at the lack of education/guidance young people get on sexual relationships. An excellent look at both sides of the pron issue, Ms. Thorn’s approach in this topic tends to be a bit technical. It leaves out the emotional connection, love, and addresses technique in relation to porn. A caring (loving) partner will learn what his partner prefers and when she/he prefers it. Sometime a couple in love will throw out technique and let passion take them wherever, like an elevator scene.
As far as finding pron on your partner’s computer, that’s primarily an honesty issue, and a big red flag. It makes trust much more difficult.
Good stuff, Ms. Thorn,keep educating the masses.

Boyfriends & Porn
—
There’s this stereotype about girlfriends and porn. In TV, movies. Evidently looking at porn is equivalent to cheating?

I could never understand it. I don’t like porn — um, that is to say — I have never yet encountered live-action video pornography that inspired me to seek out live-action video pornography. I’m that stereotypical girl that likes erotic literature. My indulgence of this waxes and wanes.

I’ve been *intellectually* open minded about premarital, promiscuous sex, pornography, and fetishes since about 15. But I always was, and remain, *personally* affected by sex-shame stemming from sexual mores impressed upon me by my culture (with which I do not rationally agree). I still struggle with my emotions and knee-jerk reactions.

But even at 19 I was “cool” with my boyfriend watching porn. He, however, was…thoroughly ridiculous. One of his buddies had a girlfriend break up with him over porn. I rolled my eyes and said something like, “That makes no sense to me. What, she’s sleeping with him so he’s not allowed to watch porn and masturbate? It’s not like he’s cheating on her. What planet is she from? ALL GUYS MASTURBATE. So do MOST GIRLS, even if a lot of them won’t admit it. It has nothing to do with your sexual relationship with your boyfriend. It’s perfectly natural and healthy.”

My boyfriend said, “I don’t.”

Yeah. He seriously claimed he did not masturbate OR look at any porn. That he had, “a few times,” but neither interested him. I was aghast and disbelieving. He was insistent. Eventually I took him at his word, though it honestly seemed odd to me. I thought, well…it would be as wrong of me to think him a freak for NOT doing it as it would be to think him a freak FOR doing it.

Until I caught him in the shower with vaseline. I let that slide, but honestly the whole thing speaks volumes about his personality. This was hardly an isolated incident or attitude.

Currently I’m dating a guy who will tell me he “needs some private time.” Or I’ll tell him, “I’m going to masturbate in the living room, so make a lot of noise if you’re going to come in.” It’s SUCH a relief.

Which leads directly to:

Porn & Sexual Expectations
———

The guy I’m dating right now watches a lot of porn. He’s also got what I consider “funny” taste in porn. By which I mean, “I find it amusing and cute.”

When we were first dating and having more sex and experimenting with it a little, we had several conversations about possible acts and just…conversations about sex in general.

And regardless of how egalitarian and cool he is about female sexuality, how smart he is, how much more experience he has than me, et cetera… I found a lot of topics about which he had “bought into” the porn-ified porn portrayal. I still think he should know better. But as we went ’round in circles about those items I realized…it’s sort of like knocking an ice cream cone out of a kid’s hand. To enjoy generic mass-market porn you sort of have to buy into it a little. Suspension of disbelief, just like a scifi movie.

But it made me realize — again — that even smart, experienced, introspective people have blind spots. And those spots are open to influence.

My preferred solution to that, with porn, is actually MORE porn. More varied porn. More talking about porn. More “behind the scenes” of porn. *shrug*

I still don’t much like watching it myself. Sometimes. But no one’s making me, now, are they.

@Anonymous — I found a lot of topics about which he had “bought into” the porn-ified porn portrayal. I still think he should know better. But as we went ’round in circles about those items I realized…it’s sort of like knocking an ice cream cone out of a kid’s hand. To enjoy generic mass-market porn you sort of have to buy into it a little. Suspension of disbelief, just like a scifi movie.

I’ve known a lot of men like what you describe: men who seem like they should be smarter than that. It kind of makes me crazy. It’s one of the factors that make me suspect that, at this point in my life, I just can’t date guys who can’t engage me in a serious deconstruction of sex & gender. Not because everyone has to be able to do that, but because a man who dates me has to be able to question the shit society has inculcated in him, or he’ll (at the very least) be terrible in bed.

Okay, I’ll quit ranting. The question I actually wanted to ask you was this: Do you really think that “in order to enjoy mass-market porn you have to buy into it a little”? I’d like to hear more about this, because I don’t think that “buying in” is necessary for enjoyment ….

It’s sad to see all this analysis and emotion tied to what is known as projecting. All men must like violent rape sex, because that’s what boyfriend liked. There are quite a few of us who prefer a partner who is honest and welcomes us. Role playing is fake, an act. Many of us prefer a romantic relationship to sport encounters or one night stands.

I got to this story via AlterNet, and there’s one main problem that I see. You freely admit that you haven’t read her book, and as a result, you are arguing against a straw man, or at least not a complete explanation of her argument. Dines says in this interview (also on AlterNet) that her main argument is not about _all_ porn being bad, but about the change in the nature of mainstream porn to being much more violent than it was in the past. For crying out loud, read this: “For example, he said one of the big things are anal prolapses, where literally their anuses drop out of their body and have to be sewn back in because of the brutal anal sex.”

Was that sex consensual? That depends on how you define “consent.” Did the women this happened to know this would (or even possibly could) be a result of the job they took? Did they take this job because they enjoyed it, or because they had no other choice or all their other choices were worse? Is being informed of the physical and health consequences crucial to proper consent? Is freedom from coercion crucial to consent? What counts as coercion anyway — does economic hardship count?

I know it can seem like I’m asking these questions in a pointed way…I recently experienced the pain of having someone ask pointed questions that were really arguments and basically making me look bad without me having to say anything, and that’s not what I’m trying to do here. I’m not trying to make you look like a bad feminist or a bad person, but I think that your self-admission of not having read the book should tell you something. You accuse Dines of not having experience in what she writes about, but it’s hard for you to argue that convincingly because you don’t even know. I say this because I think if you DO read her book, even if you still disagree with her at the end, you may be able to acknowledge that she DOES have some valid points.

Basically, I think that what you’ve written here seems like you are arguing in bad faith. “Anti-porn feminists,” as you call them, may be coming to a conclusion you disagree with and you could probably make a convincing argument about whether the violence Dines describes really is “mainstream” porn (and you could also argue about what qualifications have to be met to count as “mainstream” in the first place…this is one of those deceptive words that seems to have a specific definition but has wildly different interpretations, which is why it’s problematic in and of itself). But they are coming from the position of wanting to protect women from something that can hurt them. Not that you are trying to hurt women or are indifferent to the hurting of women, but my impression of this article is that you don’t seem to know how porn can be harmful, at best. While the porn DVD sitting at home _may_ not hurt an individual woman, or even the vast majority of women whose partners have them, at all, to argue that the women who are in porn never are harmed or only rarely have individual, isolated bad experiences is not supported by what many, many women in the industry say.

Dines isn’t saying that naked women (or pictures of naked women) are bad, or having sex that you enjoy and like and consent to but is a little iffy for most people is bad. No anti-porn feminist does. And there are a multitude of approaches to dealing with the problems that _do_ exist. But I would hope you could recognize that such activists are pointing out real problems and concerns with pornography.

@machina — As a woman who’s had sex with a number of men, here are a couple of particularly irritating and recurring real-life examples of how I read the idea of “buying into a pornified portrayal”:

1) Sex ends with the man’s orgasm.

2) Penis-in-vagina sex, and maybe oral sex, are the most central and legitimate forms of sex.

Man, am I ever tired of that crap.

@Ruthie — My post wasn’t mainly about Dines, and I would hope that most people take the arguments for themselves rather than centering them on her and her book. I threw in some side notes about her because she’s the most recent example of anti-porn feminism in the media and because I’m particularly irritated by some of her assertions in interviews, etc. For example, you claim that many women in the industry are out there talking about how badly they’ve been hurt by it, but have you read any accounts from actual sex workers about these supposed awful physical dangers that they face while doing their job? The anal prolapse quotation is pretty gross, yes, and my sympathies go to anyone who might experience that, but that quote didn’t even come from an actual sex worker, it came from a health worker with who-knows-what kind of biases. And did you read the Ms. Magazine interview in which one of Dines’ own former assistants, who is now a porn performer, wrote:

There’s no emotional trauma from a sex act that you’re prepared for. If you know in advance what you’re going to be doing, you are ready. If I have a day where I’m doing seven penetrations, I know what to do to insure that my body remains healthy. Sex acts don’t happen by accident in porn and you know how to deal with them in advance.

Or this comment from another adult film actress:

There is no doubt porn is a very physical job. However, it is also a very individualized profession. Each performer is responsible for their own physical health. A performer always has the choice of not doing something they are not comfortable with. All of my peers are doing work they feel proud of and that enhances and expands on their own sexuality. Gail Dines thinks all performers are victims and this couldn’t be further from the truth.

I also need to point out that many people outside the industry are having rough sex by choice. I’ve heard quite a few stories of people [in the general population] going a little too hard and hurting themselves.

How many sex workers do you actually know? How about porn stars? Have you talked to any in person? Have you toured any porn companies? Do you read any blogs written by sex workers?

If you had read anything else on my blog before commenting, or if you had even read the rest of the comments on this post (like comment #2), then you would know that sex workers’ rights — and respecting bodily integrity for all people — and worrying about consent — are some of my biggest concerns. However, the conditions in which sex workers do their jobs, while extremely important, are not actually relevant to the question of whether certain images cause social problems. And the idea that “no anti-porn feminist” is saying that “naked pictures are bad” is just plain wrong. Perhaps you haven’t been exposed to those arguments from anti-porn feminists, but they are out there. They’re not even hard to find. Even Gail Dines herself said:

Pornland looks at how porn messages, ideologies, and images seep into our everyday life. Whether it be Miley Cyrus in Elle spread-eagle on a table dressed in S&M gear, or Cosmopolitan telling readers to spice up their sex lives with porn, we are overwhelmed by a porn culture that shapes our sexual identities and ideas about gender and sexuality. … The problem is that women in our culture have to conform to very narrow definitions of femininity and it’s defined by porn. Miley Cyrus’s performance is not about creativity but dictated by capitalism. … My issue is about the market and about how pornography frames femininity.

In that bit she’s getting a lot more into concerns about images than concerns about performers, isn’t she?

[…] Sympathy for the Anti-Porn Feminists by sex positive activist, Clarisse Thorn. It’s a great article and I highly recommend reading it in its entirety. However, here are some bits that stood out for me: “So how can I have sympathy for anti-porn feminists? Only because I remember how I felt just a few years ago. I remember that I felt so confused about my own sexuality; I remember how resentful I felt, that sex seemed so easy for men — that the world seemed to facilitate their sex drives so thoroughly, particularly by providing all this porn!” […]

Clarisse: @machina — As a woman who’s had sex with a number of men, here are a couple of particularly irritating and recurring real-life examples of how I read the idea of “buying into a pornified portrayal”:

1) Sex ends with the man’s orgasm.

2) Penis-in-vagina sex, and maybe oral sex, are the most central and legitimate forms of sex.

This could be a case of porn being a *somewhat* accurate portrayal of men’s prefered sexual behaviour though. In terms of 1) usually sex is the last thing I want to do after orgasm. It’s often interesting to me how my sexual desire just switches off almost instantly, and yeah it’s sometimes irritating for partners, but I think this biological rather than social. In terms of 2) this is complicated by the fact that penis-in-vagina is such a reliable way of getting off that I usually centralise it to avoid those awkward moments when you know you’re not going to. Of course, there’s the existing social gravitas attached to PIV sex that porn contributes to.

@machina — This could be a case of porn being a *somewhat* accurate portrayal of men’s prefered sexual behaviour though. In terms of 1) usually sex is the last thing I want to do after orgasm. It’s often interesting to me how my sexual desire just switches off almost instantly, and yeah it’s sometimes irritating for partners, but I think this biological rather than social.

This is true for most women as well, but we’re trained to either set aside our orgasms (and see them as unimportant), or to push through the “I don’t want to keep going” feeling if our partners haven’t come yet (and never, ever complain about it, or acknowledge the frustration of it, sometimes not even to ourselves for a long time — unlike men in a similar situation). In my experience, men can push through it just fine too; most simply don’t bother.

In terms of 2) this is complicated by the fact that penis-in-vagina is such a reliable way of getting off that I usually centralise it to avoid those awkward moments when you know you’re not going to. Of course, there’s the existing social gravitas attached to PIV sex that porn contributes to.

PIV is the most effective way of getting off for most men, yes, but it’s not the most effective way of getting off for most women.

So yes, both of these points may be partly a result of porn being a somewhat accurate representation of men’s desires, as you say. But it’s fucked up that that’s our default representation of what sex is, because it means that men whose desires fit the default end up seeing the default as “normal sex”, and become confused or even hostile if that is questioned. That was the point about “buying into a pornified portrayal”, I think. You could say that this is more a result of stereotypical men’s desires being societally centered than porn being societally centered — is that the argument you were trying to make?

I think I got a bit triggered before I wrote my last comment, so I want to clarify.

My main point was that I think that although mainstream porn does represent stereotypical preferred sexual behavior for men, the fact that most people learn about sex from porn seems to create a vicious cycle in which that stereotype becomes the default, so it both reinforces men’s preferred sexual behavior and becomes harder for everyone to question.

It may be true that most men aren’t too motivated to keep having sex after they come. Most women aren’t either; I certainly am not. But women are basically expected to keep having sex after we come (assuming we come), because male orgasms are seen as the natural end to the sex act. Which reinforces a dynamic in which men feel totally justified saying, “Aww man, but after I come I’m soooo tiiired, and I just don’t feeeel like making my girlfriend come.” Which women become more likely to accept, because we never see images or representations of men who are willing to continue the action after they’ve gotten off.

Which sucks. In fact, it sucks for both men and women, because women can end up in a crazy world where we feel like we have to either get a guy to give us an orgasm before he comes (this can be hard) or we just have to give up on having orgasms (I’ve been there). Whereas men start feeling terrible for not lasting very long, and that’s a pretty stupid thing to feel guilty about, not to mention unnecessary considering that any individual guy could just get over himself and acknowledge that he can keep messing around once he’s had an orgasm.

I think it was Playboy, 25 or so years ago that taught me that sex was about mutual pleasure. I’ve never hesitated to go down on a partner before or after I’ve cum, I’ve even had sex where I didn’t cum but it was still good because of the emotional closeness with my partner.

My understanding is with “one night stands” there is a default of not caring about whether the woman cums, but then again most men who get lots of those are male “players” who have lots of women competing for their affection, mostly seem incapable of returning said affection, and don’t have any particular reason to care about mutuality in sex as the act is all about what the woman can do for them.

@clarence — Heh. Maybe it’s because I’m relatively young, but I tend not to see Playboy as quite as much of an offender as a lot of other forms of mainstream porn, especially videotaped.

I think my feelings are probably more influenced by my personal experiences than they should be (hence my acknowledgement of being triggered). On the other hand, men who were unwilling to keep going after they came (if the concept even occurred to them or me) is a theme that’s been pretty consistent across the non-feminist men I’ve had relationships with. And I haven’t usually been one to have one-night stands.

When I mentioned non-feminist men in the above comment, I probably should have noted that feminist men are the only men I’ve dated who thought seriously about gender and sexuality. It’s definitely possible that non-feminist (or even antifeminist) men are perfectly capable of also being awesome in bed, having thought outside their own societal boxes. I’ve just never hooked up with one, so my only data points for “guys who I’ve hooked up with who were great in bed” happens to be “feminist guys”. I am actually getting more and more tempted to hook up with specifically non-feminist but very gender-theory-oriented guys. In fact I think I’m getting a pickup artist fetish. You only think I’m kidding.

@Clarisse:
Just came back here from the manliness thread. I neglected to check back after I made my comment.

As to your question:

I’m confused … if the porn you’re finding is turning you on, why do you say that you don’t like it? Is it just that it’s not the best kind of porn?

There are things other than the porn itself that is arousing me. As Chastity said: “[…]the knowledge that you’re about to be aroused is, itself, arousing”. In other words, the actual act of searching for porn arouses me. Similar to how the expectation/hope of soon-to-happen sex is arousing to me.

And as I get more and more aroused, I get less and less picky because I just want to find something to finish off to.

Thanks for the clarification Clarisse. Another clarification: the irritation with me was more the lack of afterglowing and not laying about being incoherent.

I’m not denying that porn reinforces stereotypical male sexuality. I’m just saying that it didn’t come up with these ideas on its own and that men who are selfish, ignorant or insecure are probably going to fall into the stereotypical PIV sex narrative anyway.

2) Penis-in-vagina sex, and maybe oral sex, are the most central and legitimate forms of sex.

I’m beginning to think that my sexual experiences and socialization are just atypical for a guy. I’m definitely familiar with these tropes, but I’ve always encountered them as complaints from women, and thus I’ve always endeavored to avoid these things.

In a lot of respects, actually, I’m thinking I’ve been socially conditioned about sex more like women, because the following is something I relate to very viscerally:

[…]but we’re trained to either set aside our orgasms (and see them as unimportant), or to push through the “I don’t want to keep going” feeling if our partners haven’t come yet (and never, ever complain about it, or acknowledge the frustration of it, sometimes not even to ourselves for a long time[…]

I’ve always considered my own sexual satisfaction highly secondary to my partner’s, and basically feared being an asshole if I looked out “too much” for my own needs. And expressing frustration at my needs not being met is extremely taboo for me. The only thing I don’t struggle with is setting my own orgasm aside, but I think that would be an issue if the women I’ve slept with didn’t see male orgasm as critical to sex. I rather suspect that if I tried to end sex before I came my partner would insist.

I’ve also become acutely familiar with the experience of orgasm not equaling satisfying sex, because that’s happened to me a great deal. In fact, I’d say that’s largely the norm for me.

It’s actually a recent thing (and, if I may thank you, in large part because of your blog, Clarisse) that I’ve been realizing that my needs are important too, and I’m not an asshole if I ask for them to be met. So I’m working on that.

I also struggle with male sexuality being framed as “less than” a lot. At least for me, I’ve internalized really strongly the notion that my sexuality is less-than (and I mean outside of the toxicity discussion). For example, it feels like it’s a bad thing that I get turned on more quickly and easily than my partners, and that I don’t deserve for that to be accommodated ever. It feels like it should always be me accommodating my partner’s sexuality, never the other way around.

To be honest, a lot (though certainly not all) of the sex I’ve had in the past felt like work, because I put so much effort into pleasing my partners without ever (or rarely) trying to get my own needs met. (And to be clear, pleasing my partner is not work if my needs are being met too. In fact, I really enjoy pleasing my partner. Just… when my needs aren’t being met, it starts to lose its appeal. And I often start putting less and less effort in when that happens.)

It’s also why I react really strongly to tropes about men being easy to please, because that is such a complete disconnect with my personal experience. Easy to turn on? Sure. Easy to make come? Sure. Easy to please? Doesn’t seem like it.

[frustrated about the trope that] Penis-in-vagina sex, and maybe oral sex, are the most central and legitimate forms of sex.

While “legitimate” certainly is a load of bollocks, I think it’s worth pointing out that for some people intercourse is an important sexual need, and in that sense could seem “central” to them. And I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that.

Taking myself as an example, I think I would be pretty dissatisfied in a sexual relationship where intercourse was only an occasional thing. I hardly need every instance of sex to include intercourse. But it’s definitely a sexual need of mine, and it’s a positive–not negative–thing for me to try to get that need fulfilled (i.e. find a partner that is happy to fulfill that need).

I’m assuming you agree, but the phrasing in the original quote struck me as (unintentionally) shaming such needs a bit.

@Cessen, well, you know me. I try to avoid shaming pretty much any consensual sexual choice, so I’m sorry I came across that way. It’d be pretty hypocritical if I were coming down on PIV/penetration, too, because I really enjoy them.

Maybe it will help explain what I mean if I quote a woman who recently commented on this post from Hugo Schwyzer’s blog. I don’t agree with her characterization of Hugo (as an arrogant dude who fails to understand these issues), but one of her comments particularly struck a chord:

I myself am just beginning to understand this stuff. All I know is that for years, and in multiple relationships, I have had PIV when I didn’t really want to, because that’s what you do. And all the men I’ve been with—in varying degrees of empathy and respect for me from the man who raped me as a child to the man I’m married to now—who feel entitled to PIV from me. Does the fact that my husband had PIV with me, even though it was hurting me, even though I said I wasn’t really that interested but I was willing for him, make him a rapist? I don’t know. Perhaps in some definitions, yes, but in others, no. If that word is really galling you so much, maybe don’t use it, or maybe examine why it has such emotional force for you. But the point is, in a world where PIV is expected, demanded, and forcibly taken from women, women like me go through life never even realizing we have a right to refuse it. I know I have a right to say no to my husband on many sex acts that I am not interested in—anal intercourse, for example, or receiving or performing oral sex. But never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined it would be okay for me to say I didn’t want to have PIV.

That’s the kind of feeling I’m trying to support when I push back against the idea of PIV as the “right” way to have sex. Because it’s so not ideal for so many women, and because so many of us take so long to realize that it is reasonable — and can be highly awesome — not to center it.

It sounds like you’ve had a particularly hard time figuring out your own needs and getting them met — I absolutely respect that, and I’m really glad that my writings have helped! My own experience has been so profoundly shaped by stereotypically male-centered sex, though, that I can’t help but react strongly along those lines.

@Clarisse:
Yeah, I assumed you didn’t mean it in a shaming way. It’s nice to get explicit confirmation, of course. :-)

But the point is, in a world where PIV is expected, demanded, and forcibly taken from women, women like me go through life never even realizing we have a right to refuse it.

Good quote.

And yeah, intercourse should not be an a-priori obligatory part of sex that can’t be refused/negotiated like everything else. Any act should be refusable. And I can see how intercourse especially, and to a lesser extent oral, aren’t really seen that way.

But on an individual level, it’s also important for people to be able to drop/refuse partners that don’t fulfill their needs. So if intercourse is an important need of mine, it’s not a bad thing if I make sexual intercourse a prerequisite for my partners. Not in a “you have to do this” kind of way, but in a “I need to find someone that is happy to do this, and you aren’t, so… sorry” kind of way.

And I think what’s tricky, perhaps, is that distinction between “you have to” and “it’s a pre-req for me” can sometimes be subtle. Especially for acts that are culturally assumed, like intercourse.

[…] That statement may sound disingenuous coming from me. As a sex-positive feminist whose sexual identity is BDSM, I spend most of my time writing in favor of sexual freedom. I emphatically don’t support the censoring of porn, and I believe that many such calls for censorship arise from irrational grossed-out reactions and sexual fears. […]

I just have to say that porn damages men AND women. It creates and perpetuates ideas about “perfect” body-types and beauty. It ruins peoples lives by making them feel less-than and never good enough, and that they need to take extreme measures to be good enough. And it also sets men and women up to look for this beauty in a partner, and end up dissatisfied when it is hard to find.

If porn actors were all just normal-looking people I would agree with you. But since mainstream porn actors are not, I think it is incredibly damaging to all involved.

[…] felt good even before I could have orgasms, even before I’d found S&M, even before I’d parsed out my feelings and learned more about sexual media such as porn. And I’ve talked a lot about how awesome and sex-positive my sex […]

@Fae Price — I tried to address that point in my piece by talking about giving people better sex education. I think that the standards porn sets up for both body and sexuality would be much less of a problem if we were living in a context that constantly emphasized alternatives and made it clear that everyone’s preferences are individual, and not required; that the mainstream ideas of sex and beauty are just that, merely mainstream — not shared by everyone.

I really enjoyed reading this incredibly thoughtful post. And I have to say, I agree with most of it.

I think it is important to separate practices in the porn industry from the social consumption of it and the effects it might have on those who consume it.

Like any unregulated industry, there are going to be bad and dangerous practices. There will be an inequity between labour and management, so to speak. And porn is no different. That being said, I find it patronizing when people talk about women in the porn industry – as a whole – being exploited. They are adult women and men making choices in a sub-industry of market driven system where MOST workers are, to some extent, exploited.

Our social reactions to porn, however, are a different matter. I do believe that porn makes for a lousy educational tool. It represents, for the most part, a simplification of the sexual transaction. This works well as a vehicle for exploring fantasy, but it’s not a great educational resource for people who are just learning about sex. The fault lies here, I think, with our own inability as a society to address sex education in anything close to a healthy way.

Porn doesn’t claim to educate, and yet by abrogating our responsibility to make young people knowledgeable about their own bodies and sexualities in a comprehensive and unclinical way, we’ve left it up to porn to fill in the gaps of what we as a society are uncomfortable talking about. If we did a better job educating young people in how to be critical thinkers and consumers, our fears that porn is skewing the way young men and women conceive of sex would be moot.

I like porn. I consume some of it. But I acknowledge that porn, for the most part, addresses sex in a simplistic and decontextualized way. Personally, I find this liberating as a women because it underscores the fact that sex can, but doesn’t have to, have an emotional component. Porn portrays humans as sexual beings only – it’s reductionist. But if that offends us, then we should also be offended by the way almost every form of advertising reduces us to eaters, washers of hair or wearers of clothes. And how governmental organizations reduce us to statistics.

Most forms of group social endeavors represent their members as simplified – mothers, steelworkers, real estate agents. The only reason society has a problem with the way porn simplifies humans is that we have a problem with sex.

If we could stop feeling so ambivalent, as a society, about sex in general, the way porn represents us as simplistic sexual beings wouldn’t bother us nearly as much.

It was in the early 90’s that I discovered a book called “Women Against Censorship,” edited by Varda Burstyn. This was the first time that I’d seen anything speaking for women like me: women who considered themselves porn-friendly.

Visual porn didn’t do much for me, except those beautifully shot pictures in Penthouse when I was a teenager and in my early 20’s (1970’s – 1985 or so), but I gobbled up written porn, first by reading Nancy Friday’s “My Secret Garden” – remember that? And then by reading “The Pearl.” By the early 90’s I was discovering Susie Bright and Carol Queen. I found pro-sex women who were smart, powerful and sexual. What role models! The first time I read Susie was in “Angry Women” (RE/Search collection #13). There was an empowered young person claiming her sexuality and waving her flag of sexual self-hood at the world! I didn’t grow up in a world where men had internet-easy access to porn. I grew up in a world where porn was tucked into one’s parents’ underwear drawer, if we were lucky, or stacks of Playboy were under great-uncle’s bed, as in my case. Yes, men were sexual, but all I knew was: I was as sexual as they were, and finally I began to find women like me.

It hurt to see Dworkin and company pushing the “penetration is rape” thing. I found it astonishing, and so denying of who I was as a woman. Even in recent years I’ve found the need to shout my sexuality to the rooftops so people will know we exist: we porn-happy, pro-sex, feminist females.

This is how we do it: we dialogue, we learn to see the myriad manifestations and contradictions in the sexual journeys we, as women, have had to take in this crazily confusing American sexual ethos in which we live. I agree: we need to take into account the complexity of sexual representation, the negatives and positives that are part of any true critique of anything! And we need, above all, to create pleasure-positive sex education for all people.

Thanks for writing about all this, Clarisse. See you sometime soon, I hope. :)

However! There’s another group of men who are excellent in bed. Often, they’re even better than men who don’t watch porn. And that group is men who have watched a lot of different kinds of porn and who have thought carefully about their reactions to it. They have learned how many different flavors of sexuality are out there in the world. They are men who have gotten over their sexual repression and learned to talk about sex in an open, accepting, honest way.

Would you believe that these men exist (or are at least forming) at ages as young as seventeen? I honestly don’t want to sound presumptuous, but I smiled quite a bit when I read the quoted section, because it affirmed I wasn’t wasting my time on my pursuits of internal analysis.

You see, being seventeen, most people wouldn’t think I have any right to an intellectual opinion, and I’d wager that for the majority of people my age, those people would be right. But I’ve been through some horrible experiences, and heard a lot of conflicting arguments and opinions about porn and sexuality, and I’ve never been one to ignore something like contradicting ideas. So I’ve been looking at myself, at my assumptions about sexuality, at my (admittedly quite limited) experiences and how they relate to my ideas on sex, women, and myself. I’ve also been looking at my preferences in porn, and doing my best to really look at and try other kinds, to learn about things I would have previously passed off as ‘bad’ or ‘not my thing’ without thinking. It’s why I’m even reading this blog; it’s an interesting, open-minded, knowledgeable, and intellectual approach to different aspects of sex and alternative sexuality.

Throughout this entire personal study, I’ve had one goal in mind: Discover what I did wrong, and what I did right. Obviously, the answer to this question has become more and more complex the more I realize there are so many different kinds of women and kinks and preferences, but this has always been the driving force behind my search.

The reason I lay all this out here is to ask you, Clarisse, a question: what do you expect to come of this? What do you, having known and been with men who have gone through a similar phase of life, expect or hope to see come of this?

Julian Morrison wrote:
My suspicion is that there is what’s called “pluralistic ignorance” in the porn industry about what people want – popularity driving retail driving expectations driving popularity.

I honestly believe you could extend this to not just the film industry in general, but to any entertainment industry out there; movies, television, music, and especially video games. I say this as someone who has closely followed and sincerely hopes to be a bi part of the video games industry: that cycle of pluralistic ignorance exists, is horrifically widespread, and is almost completely detrimental to the growth of any entertainment medium.

@Gilfareth — The reason I lay all this out here is to ask you, Clarisse, a question: what do you expect to come of this? What do you, having known and been with men who have gone through a similar phase of life, expect or hope to see come of this?

Hmm, I’m not sure what you’re asking. I think what I’m hoping to come of this is just what I said — people who have a better idea of the diversity of desire, and who respect others’ sexual diversity as much as possible. And for the record, one of the more transformative lovers I’ve had was 19/20 (I was 23/24 at the time), so I have confidence that you can be awesome ;)

[…] you for trying not to confuse CT and Clarissa and here is one of CT’s best (in my opinion) posts about the anti-porn movement for your reading pleasure. Share this:TwitterFacebookLike this:LikeBe the first to like […]

I’m so sick of (dudes using) Danish people as the measuring stick of “healthy “progressive” European freedom. Yes, they can smoke do heroin and look at prostituted women in red-lit windows drunk on Guiness after smoking expensive hash in a cafe. Therefore they know everything there is to know about life? Durr.
Jeff

The Unitarian universalist association publishes a sex Ed curriculum for young adults that is founded on discussing sex openly and honestly. They cover topics like kink and sexual preferences in a non-moralistic tone, among many other topics. The curriculum is called Our Whole Lives (OWL).

Second, there was a recent article that found that men who have watched a lot of porn growing up have more difficulty becoming aroused. I’ve found myself being more weary about watching porn out of the fear that I may become less sexually attracted to my partner. At the same time, I have found that porn has taught me a lot about how the female body functions and has allowed me to be a more sensitive sexual partner.

Mod note: If you’re going to comment on this post (or anywhere on my blog), then please separate your paragraphs — don’t write 1000 words with no line breaks. Also please be aware of comment length in general. I’m not going to publish 5 comments that are each 800 words from the same person. It will just make the thread hard to read for everyone else.

@rezaul622 – Denmark does rank top 5 in pretty much every index that attempts to measure happiness, well being, general satisfaction with life and other mental health characteristics of the population. By basically every scientific measure humans have ever come up with for determining if the population of a country is happy, Denmark is doing exceptionally well.

@Clarisse – While I have never characterized feminism as a whole as a hate movement – if you have an opinion outside of the accepted norms on almost any internet feminism community site – you’ll see a lot of hate and very little rational consideration. And frankly, a huge part of Second wave feminism straddled the line between angry protests and out right misandry. Literature associated with Third wave and Sex Positive feminism tends to be much less negative in my experience, and activists associated with those specific groups tend to be much less hateful. But the most vocal internet feminists tend to not be in those groups.

The internet in general gives us a wonderful view of people’s hatefulness. That’s clear in almost any internet forum or subgroup. But I think there are a lot of current generation internet dwelling feminists who would have gotten on very well with Valerie Jean Solanas. Referencing Wendy McElroy’s views and writing when talking to the typical hate filled intarwebs crusader is usually a short path to a flame war.

Feminism isn’t a hate movement. But if you’re getting your education on modern feminism from the internet? It’s really easy to get confused.

I really like the conclusions you come to in this article, and thanks for sharing your experiences.

I think when I was younger my fear of porn was actually a fear of loss of control, or rather theft of control. I wanted, and still prefer, someone who “gets” me sexually; I want someone with roughly similar desires to myself, and watching other people have sex does absolutely nothing for me. In fact if I were forced to choose between watching porn and being in it, I would choose the latter (the permanence of it would bother me, but I have an exhibitionist streak, so the making probably wouldn’t). What worried me was the suggestion from other people that since “all men” enjoy watching other people have sex*, I would have to choose between feeling alienated from and misunderstood by my partner, and being lied to.

The idea of being lied to on something that’s very important to me, being tricked into a relationship with someone, scares the shit out of me, and when someone is that scared they are quite likely to lash out. Which is of course counter-productive as it makes lies more likely (not that that ever justifies them; lieing to someone on a dealbreaker is one of the scummiest things it’s possible to do).

So if I was ever anti-porn, it wasn’t because I was actually against it, it just felt like my consent was going to be taken away, and I wanted to wish away that risk. I’m not remotely anti-porn now, it just doesn’t interest me, and I would prefer a similar partner. These days I just stick “watching pornography” on my Yes, No, Maybe list (for relationships; for casual sex I don’t find that level of similarity necessary) along with everything from the various forms of oral sex to sadism, pegging and daddy sex, which I think is where it belongs. It’s no different to any other preference.

*The variation in this perception is quite startling. I grew up (fairly recently, I’m 25) in a rural, middle-class area of the UK, and the attitude when I was a teenager was that if a man wasn’t interested in porn he had something seriously wrong with him. Admitting a lack of interest was seriosly stimatisd. I suspect this is something that could vary even from town to town though!

I’m not sure if I even qualify as a feminist but I think porn in the internet era raises some tough questions about consent. For example:

Who owns sexual pictures of your body? Someone breaks into your cell phone and leaks your naked pictures, that’s on obvious boundary violation. But once you consent to have your naked pictures online, do you never have to right to withdraw that consent? This isn’t just theoretical, I remember seeing an article about an 18-year woman who agreed to do a porn shoot. After the shot was published, she got cold-feet and demanded that the website take it down. Fortunately the website owner acquiesced, but what would happen if they didn’t.Who is responsible for all the porn exposed to minors? When I was 14, my classmates called me a faggot because I didn’t want to look at porn. Boys (and girls, increasingly) are dragged into porn culture at a very young age and I don’t think parents are entirely to blame. The porn websites make no serious attempt to prevent minors from seeing their content. Also I also think that “sex-positivists” are too willing to see porn as a normal part of puberty. Looking at a naked body is as much as a sexual act as having your naked body looked at. If you don’t approve of 25-year olds looking at naked 14 year olds, you shouldn’t approve of 14-year olds looking at naked 25 year olds.What about the minors on amateur porn sites? Sites like Tumblr and Reddit allow anyone to upload a naked picture of themselves for others to consume. There is no age verification, so it’s inevitable that some of the uploads will be from minors. Is it ethical to look at amateur porn, given that some of the pictures are of minors?

IMHO the porn industry has not answered these questions satisfactorily, and so I am trying to phase out my porn consumption.

I think you make some good and very interesting points. Re. being verbally abused for not wanting to look at porn: that was very much my experience too (and I saw it happen to other people a lot too). I was told continually that not wanting to look at porn = not being interested in or being scared of everything about sex, but people who liked porn but didn’t want to look at it in a social situation or as some kind of group bonding exercise got harassed for that, too.

I think it is often missed that consuming porn is a sexual act, and so forcing/coercing someone into it is every bit as unethical as forcing/coercing them into any other sexual act that they don’t want at that point in time. Sexual abuse of children by other children, of which that is an example, is barely recognised as existing, let alone (in my experience) dealt with in schools, which is a disgrace.

There is recognition by a lot of sex positive people that many women are freaked out by over-zealous advances by men, because they have so much experience of, and/or awareness of the danger of, sexual harassment, sexual abuse and/or rape. Now, I think that bearing that in mind might help more people understand why porn is such a hot button, because so many people, even people who enjoy some porn as adults, have experience of being forced to see it without their consent. I think that reacting fearfully, defensively and angrily, while not terribly helpful, is very understandable given that.

I definitely, absolutely don’t support pressuring people into viewing porn. I think that’s non-consensual and wrong. Some sex-positive writers have taken to talking about “prude-shaming” as an analogue to “slut-shaming” — i.e., people who don’t want to have sex are shamed for it, the same way people who want to have a lot of sex are shamed for it. And both these things are wrong!

I think in general, people who have experienced trauma are usually going to react defensively to whatever triggers that trauma. Many people experience some degree of trauma with porn, or they see their own traumas mirrored in porn — and they react defensively because of that. That’s not the fault of porn, but I do wish that more sex-positive people were empathic about it.

However! There’s another group of men who are excellent in bed. Often, they’re even better than men who don’t watch porn. And that group is men who have watched a lot of different kinds of porn and who have thought carefully about their reactions to it. They have learned how many different flavors of sexuality are out there in the world. They are men who have gotten over their sexual repression and learned to talk about sex in an open, accepting, honest way. Those men are fantastic in bed.

Yes! Yes! Clarisse you nailed it. I am one of those men. I watch countless story lines, discover new fetishes. I watch mainstream porn to see what the latest trends are, i watched fetish porn to understand how to perform it better. A night of sex with me would be a JOKE if it weren’t for all the porn I’ve watched. And in terms of anti-porn criticism, let’s face it. The every day definition of porn is merely “depictions of sex”. If it were not for sexual repression, sex would not be excluded in the story lines of regular movies. The only reason there are the two genres: ‘porn’ and ‘not porn’ is because of sexual repression. Movies and TV shows about life in general is a crucial avenue for portraying our collective attitudes, beliefs, and lessons in life. Part of the reason we are SO damaged about sex is BECAUSE ‘porn’, aka, depictions of sex, is not allowed on regular TV or film. It’s that simple! Clarisse, thank you for this!

About Clarisse

On the other hand, I also wrote a different book about the subculture of men who trade tips on how to seduce and manipulate women:

I give great lectures on my favorite topics. I've spoken at a huge variety of places — academic institutions like the University of Chicago; new media conventions like South By Southwest; museums like the Museum of Sex; and lots of others.

I established myself by creating this blog. I don't update the blog much anymore, but you can still read my archives. My best writing is available in my books, anyway.

I've lived in Swaziland, Greece, Chicago, and a lot of other places. I've worked in game design, public health, and bookstores. Now I live in San Francisco, and I make my living with content strategy and user research.